By most measures, female-focused negativity (or cattiness, or whatever you want to call it), reigned supreme at MTV's Video Music Awards last night. Yep, in case you missed it, Nicki Minaj calling out Miley Cyrus as a back-stabbing "bitch" easily overshadowed every display of love, support, and admiration during a night that was supposed to celebrate creative genius and achievement. Was it a choreographed stunt by some brilliant businesswomen who know how to play the media and their fans like a fiddle? Maybe -- but that doesn't change the fact that it resonated so well with audiences across various mobile ...

This Moblog won't include any advice on ad strategy, or suggestions for better platform optimization. And while the issue at hand is the cold-blooded murder of two young news reporters, there will be no finger-pointing. Rather, because this is Moblog, this columnist is simply encouraging a broader discussion about the connection between mobile technology and harmful human behavior.

Suddenly awash in connected gadgets, our culture is struggling mightily to establish acceptable mobile-computing customs. Distracted driving is thriving, and costing thousands of lives a year. And gadgets are mentally (and emotionally) distancing people who are actually within close physical confines. While the latter issue rarely has fatal consequences, it is seriously threatening relationships and social bonds, says Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center Director of Internet, Science and Technology Research.

In the future, the killer app -- the one many analysts say will most likely determine consumers' allegiance to a particular operating system or search service -- will be the personal assistant, such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google Now. Assistants point to a not-too-distant future in which mobile devices have been reduced to mere media displays, while most search, navigation, and communication functions are accomplished simply by asking one's assistant for help. Given the immense implications of this trend, therefore, it's shocking to hear that Google recently lost the team responsible for Now.

Despite the endless protestations of privacy advocates, consumers seem increasingly willing to trade their anonymity for better mobile services. Regarding the degree to which apps eavesdrop on our personal lives, experts say most consumers exist in a state of blissful ignorance.

Following Facebook and other increasingly mobile networks, LinkedIn has officially launched a standalone messaging app. LinkedIn Lookup was developed quickly over the past months in response to what the company saw as a unique market opportunity, we're told. That opportunity is thanks to the stale state of most corporate directories. In fact, only 38% of professionals said their companies' intranets are effective at helping them learn about and connect with their coworkers, according to LinkedIn's own findings.

Although it depends on your approach, effectively engaging mobile users can be quite counterintuitive. Take the recent findings from mobile ad network AdTheorent, which show that -- at least when it comes to travel and tourism campaigns -- business apps delivered 519% higher engagement rates than entertainment apps. Is that because we as mobile consumers are far more willing to take a break from business content than something more entertaining? It's possible, but one could just as easily assume that business users are busy with their tasks at hand, and in no mood for branded distractions.